Thursday, April 04, 2013

Oliver Perez- Control Artist?

Fans of baseball, especially those of the New York Mets, know Ollie Perez can be a wee bit wild at times (to put it mildly). However, in his first appearance of the season with the Mariners he threw only 9 pitches and all 9 were strikes. Better yet, he retired 4 batters on those 9 pitches and struck out 1 of them. Perhaps we're looking at the next Greg Maddux-esque control artist...ah, probably not.

In 2008 he lead the NL with 105 walks. In 2010 he walked more batters (42) than he struck out (37). For his career he's averaged 5 walks per 9 innings.